


Reimagine

by merulanoir



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Past Lives, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25571917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merulanoir/pseuds/merulanoir
Summary: Elias stares at Peter, not really seeing him, seeingsomeone else.“We were lovers,” he says. The words fall between them. “And I did something.”
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 92





	Reimagine

**Author's Note:**

> Good evening y'all I have Lonely Eyes brain rot.

Peter Lukas grows up lonely. He doesn’t mind.

He also doesn’t _not mind._ His family is big and old, and his mother insists on certain things. They’re to be close; to maintain the family image; to go out into the world with pride, pride of just being a Lukas.

Peter runs away when he is twenty and his mother starts to talk about marriage. She has just the girl in mind, she says, a family friend, someone meek and pretty, someone with whom Peter can maintain the front, because acting out (the exact words of hers, Peter later remembers) is something for children, and it’s time for Peter to step up and accept his role in the Lukas family.

He runs away, and he is lonely.

It has always clung to him; he didn’t connect with his siblings or parents. At school he was happy to be left alone, never excelling nor failing. It was hard to be interested in anything, and his mother always had better ideas about how he should spend his time. At times it strikes him as almost laughable, how well his family fits into the stereotype of old money, but it isn’t funny because the joke’s on him. Peter knows his family is weird, messed up, and he wonders if he is, too, and it is the reason why he is so pervasively, chronically lonely. He just isn’t weird enough, or in a right way.

He becomes a repair man. He is not naturally handy, has spent his youth preparing to go to Oxford or Cambridge; living without his family’s money or blessing means the first few years are rough. Peter knows he is fundamentally different from the people he ends up working with, and it makes him nervous. He can’t and doesn’t want to explain who he was before his mother told him in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t fuck men and be a Lukas, so he clams up. His coworkers deem him weird, but in a way that sits better with him. He is lonely again, but this time it’s by choice.

No one looks at a repair man, Peter discovers once he becomes competent enough with his job. He can come and go, accept keys to buildings and warehouses, wherever his boss tells him to go, and no one sees him. They see a figure who is meant to perform a task, and that is that, and he finds it suits him just fine. 

And he lives a life that isn’t the life of a scion; he never gets the degree his parents intended, he never marries the girl his mother had in mind. Peter turns thirty, then thirty five, and he goes on being lonely. He tries to connect, but he has spent such a long time alone that he finds it nigh impossible. 

His coworkers are out of the question; he comes from old money, from an old family, and telling them he could have lived a life where he never had to worry about making rent...he can only imagine their faces, huddled together in some grimy warehouse, taking a ten-minute lunch break in between fixing clogged toilets or busted fluorescent lights. First gaping, then the questions: _What the hell? Why would you pick this crap? What did they do?_ And then rolling their eyes, maybe sneering at him for coming out, which he hasn’t done either. Why bother, when he hasn’t had a relationship that lasted longer than a few months?

Peter Lukas is lonely. Sometimes it feels like it’s the only way for him to be.

*

It’s a regular day when it all starts. Peter is alone on a job; his boss has secured a longer contract with King’s College, and since Peter technically lives in London he is the only person whose commute isn’t an absolute sodding nightmare. Peter tries to tell his boss that taking the tube for an hour and a half to get there isn’t exactly ideal, but in the end he caves. 

He spends the first week getting lost, both in the maze-like buildings crammed full of history and intellect, and in the crowd of students and academic-looking people. No one pays him much mind, and by the end of the week he has secured most of the keys he needs to start performing janitorial duties, and almost come to terms with the weird mixture of resentment and wistfulness that overtakes him as he looks at twenty-somethings full of drive.

It gets odd on that same Friday.

Peter is balancing on a rickety ladder, attempting to change a flickering light somewhere in the Strand Building, when he hears a gasp and then something clatters to the ground, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. He looks around, almost dropping the fresh fluorescent lamp, and his eyes land on a man.

He’s white and has dark, neat hair. There are glasses tucked away into the pocket of a dress shirt that looks freshly ironed, the color a deep green, and shoes that look like they’ve seen polish in the last twenty four hours. Peter’s gaze flicks from detail to detail, but he only takes in the full picture once he sees the expensive, broken tablet at the man’s feet.

The man is staring at Peter. No, not staring; glaring, but in a way that is almost scared. His eyes are wide and his mouth hangs slightly open, hands slack by his sides. Peter forgets the lamp, because the man just _keeps staring_ , and he looks frozen to the spot like the tiniest movement will unbalance some vast scale Peter can’t see.

And then the spell breaks. The man sucks in a breath which immediately comes back out, equally jittery. He finally tears his eyes away, looks at the tablet with the cracked screen, and in one fluid motion scoops it up. 

“Fuck it all,” Peter hears him mutter, and he wants to dismiss this bloke, he really wants; his accent is just as posh as Peter’s was thirteen years ago, and Peter doesn’t need people like that in his life. He looks like a damn professor, with a key card peeking from the pocket of his slacks. But going back to changing the lamp is impossible, because there and then Peter’s head goes woozy, and he feels something big, immense, and invisible press against him.

“Hey!”

Peter realises he must’ve looked nauseous, because suddenly the guy is gripping the ladder, pulling him down and talking quickly, something about how fainting while hobbling around five feet off the ground isn’t a good idea, and so on. Peter bends down at the waist the second his steel-toed boots find the floor and tries to ride out the dizziness. The floor rocks.

It’s utterly weird. Peter closes his eyes and focuses on breathing. He doesn’t flinch when the guy touches his shoulder hesitantly.

“Still with me?” The accent would be almost comforting in any other situation. Peter finally opens his eyes and looks at his shoes. The world isn’t roiling any longer, but he feels nauseous.

“Yeah,” Peter finally manages. He straightens up and yep, the guy is shorter than him. He tips his head up slightly to meet his eyes. They’re grey.

“Sorry about that,” Peter adds. His neck feels hot, but at the same time he can’t look away. The man is again staring at him, and now there is something alarmed in his eyes, the way he grips the broken iPad. His nails are manicured and he holds himself stiff, and it all reminds Peter so much of what he used to be. What he would’ve become. Then he forgets about it, because…

Because the man looks familiar. Peter can’t tell why, he’s sure they’ve never met, but something about him tugs at a loose thread within him. 

“Have we met?” Peter asks before he can stop himself. Distantly he wonders when other people will notice the scene they’re making; it’s the middle of the day, and the building is crawling with staff and students. But the hallway stays utterly empty.

The spell breaks the second time when the man realises what Peter asked. He averts his eyes, turns on his heel, and then he is gone, through a door that clicks shut before Peter can even think about reacting.

*

Peter doesn’t expect to see him again, so naturally it takes the universe all of seven hours to make it happen. He’s nursing a beer at his regular pub—queer-friendly, cozy, usually quiet until ten pm—and trying to figure out _why_ the man made him so unsettled, when he sees him again.

He’s dressed in that same shirt, but his hair is in slight disarray after the wind and rain that London’s got going on tonight. Peter stares as he stands by the bar, and when their eyes meet again he wants to look away. He doesn’t have the faintest as to what he should expect.

The man doesn’t flinch. If anything, he looks like he _expected_ to find Peter here. He picks up his drink and before Peter can even set his pint down, he is there.

He’s beautiful. It registers as if through a haze. His face is handsome, and he looks like he knows it. 

“I must apologise,” is what he says. He finally looks away from Peter’s face and clears his throat. “I behaved— well, let’s just say today was not my finest moment.”

Peter’s tongue finally unsticks itself. “No harm done.” He sets his beer on the table and wipes the condensation on his jeans. “You looked spooked.”

The man grimaces. Peter takes the opportunity to look him over, but he is still just a guy in his late thirties, dressed much better than anyone else at the South London pub.

“I, ah.” He looks up. His eyes are pained again. “Can we talk?”

Peter looks around and spots a group of three vacating a booth. He nods his head, and when he sits down the guy slides down and sits next to him. He looks anxious, and not at all like he realises this will make everyone and their cousin think they’re out on a date. Peter sighs and takes a sip of his beer.

“My name is Elias,” the man finally says. He looks like he wants to fiddle with the glass of scotch he has and forcibly stops himself from doing so. “Elias Bouchard.”

When nothing follows, Peter cocks his head. “Do you work at the College?”

Elias finally gives a hint of a smile and nods. “Yes. I’m a professor. Philosophy.” He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. Then he closes his eyes. “And for some reason I have a feeling I know you.” Peter blinks as he tells himself that this sounds insane, and tries to ignore the gut feeling of relief and recognition. His mind is very empty, but then Elias goes on and saves him from speaking. 

“This is impossible,” he says in a low voice. “I know I’ve never met you. I don’t know anything about you, but for some reason you feel—familiar.” The way he says the last word makes Peter feel like he was going to say something else and changed his mind at the last second. 

Elias sips his scotch and he looks pained, almost scared, and Peter forgets his initial discomfort with being hemmed into the booth by a complete stranger who claims he knows him; he forgets about his agitation, because—

Elias feels familiar. Peter mouths his name and it rolls off his tongue like he’s said it a thousand times before. Usually he is cagey when people get too close, but Elias is sitting close enough to touch and Peter feels at ease.

“I feel it too,” he finally manages. Elias’ head snaps up and he clearly means to say something, but Peter _sees_ the words desert him as they lock eyes. They look at each other, and the rest of the bar fades away. Peter forgets that the bartender knows him and is probably dying of curiosity by now; he forgets about the huge crevasse of class between him and Elias, he forgets about everything but the man himself.

Elias’ lips are parted as he drinks in Peter’s face. There’s that wondering glow coming into his eyes again, this time without the alarm. Peter’s gaze flits from Elias’ high cheekbones to his arched eyebrows, then to his mouth and back to his eyes. The more he looks, the more the feeling settles.

When Elias sways closer Peter catches him. His hands come up to cup his cheeks, gentle, careful, like it all will just evaporate if Peter makes one false move.

“I remember—” Elias whispers, but the words get cut off when Peter kisses him.

Somehow they leave the pub. Peter remembers it all in odd, disjointed flashes: the rain, a cab, rain again, his flat. Elias kissing back, Elias shrugging on his coat, Elias holding his hand like he’s afraid Peter will vanish if he lets go. Elias kissing him the second they door locks, pressing against Peter like he belongs there, and it feels like he does. 

Peter holds him close and kisses back. Somewhere at the back of his mind he tries to wonder how absurd this is, but that voice is squashed; he doesn’t understand, but it has to wait. He is lightheaded with the urgency to undress and touch, and Elias isn’t doing much better.

Elias kisses hungrily, not at all like Peter would’ve expected if he’d had time to wonder about such a thing; he pins Peter down on the bed and rolls his hips, simultaneously managing to be demanding and gentle. Peter isn’t used to gentle. It throws him off-balance, but it also makes Elias laugh into the kiss, and the sound of it makes something slot into place inside Peter and he forgets about it.

Elias rides him, takes his time, and Peter can’t look away. His hands come and go, mapping everything he can touch, but what should be unfamiliar skin and new angles turn out to be a body he is intimately familiar with. He grabs Elias’ cock and strokes it, twists his wrist at the tip, and Elias gasps, surges forward to kiss him until his head spins.

“I remember,” he says again, and Peter nods like it means anything. 

“Peter,” Peter gasps in the middle of it, “my name is Peter.”

Elias pulls back just enough to look him in the eye. He cups Peter's cheek and kisses him slower as he arches into his touch.

“Funny,” he whispers as his hips start to move again. “I feel like it knew that.”

The next morning Elias is gone. Peter wakes up, and it should take him much longer to accept that last night happened. Instead he just stares at the line of discarded clothing leading from the front door to his bed, and rubs his fingers over a bruise on his hip. He remembers Elias’ lips sealed over it last night. 

There is a note on the dresser. Peter looks at it for a long time, and then picks it up. He opens the window, lights a cigarette, and considers burning the note. Maybe that way the magic would remain.

_Peter,_

_I don’t know what to say. Please call me._

_E._

There is a phone number written underneath it. The handwriting is neat and precise. Peter smokes a second cigarette and then a third, and then he starts to feel gross and closes the window.

*

Elias never picks up his phone. Peter considers giving up after the second try (on Tuesday, at lunch break), but then he remembers how Elias said his name; revering, with a smile. He tries again on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday he finally thinks to check whether the number is right, but the search returns just the name he expects. Elias T. Bouchard. No address is listed, but somehow that doesn’t surprise Peter. 

Peter tries to catch Elias at the College, but he is never there. He even goes as far as to wander by the Philosophy department once or twice before he starts to feel silly. In any other case Peter would count his losses and accept that Elias is avoiding him, very possibly feeling embarrassed that he slept with someone who technically works in the same building. But Peter can’t take his mind off of Elias’ face, the relief when Peter told him his name. He can’t forget how _he_ felt like coming home.

By the next Wednesday Peter’s patience has worn gossamer-thin. He abandons all pretense and marches to the department he knows Elias must haunt. After searching for ten minutes he finds an office with a brass plaque that reads Prof E. Bouchard and starts knocking.

A woman walks by and does a double-take. Peter feels her eyes on himself, suddenly uncomfortably aware of his work clothes and messy hair. He doesn’t belong here, so what the fuck does he think he is doing?

“Looking for someone?” The woman doesn’t sound hostile, merely curious. She adjusts her glasses and tucks a ringlet of black hair behind her ear.

“Um. Yes, as a matter of fact,” Peter says. He makes a vague gesture towards Elias’ office door. “I was looking for El—Professor Bouchard.”

The woman doesn’t miss his fumble. She smiles, but now her eyes see Peter instead of a janitor. It’s uncomfortable “Elias has been out sick for the past week. Said it’s the flu. Awful business.” Peter tries to guess whether she is lying, but she meets his eye and tells him to call Elias.

Once he is outside the building, Peter sits down near the emergency exits and lights a cigarette. Without thinking, he pulls out his phone and tries again. Elias answers on the second ring. 

“Peter.” His voice is hoarse, but something tells Peter it’s not because of influenza. 

“Elias,” Peter says, and something in him uncoils. He doesn’t examine it too closely. “You asked me to call.” He doesn’t know what else to say; he wants to tell Elias that for some inexplicable reason Peter misses him.

Elias’ breathing hitches. He makes a broken sound that sounds like laughter. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Peter.”

“I’m here.” Peter knows he is holding his phone with white knuckles. He wants to squirm through the invisible line connecting him to Elias. He wants to hold him again, and most of all he wants to ignore the growing unease knowing this man is causing to bloom in his chest.

“Something is—not right,” Elias says very quietly. 

“Where are you?” 

Elias’ breath catches again. “Home. Will you come?”

Peter doesn’t even think about the fact that he has three more hours of work left. He jots down the address Elias gives him and catches a cab.

It’s a very nice area, and a very nice house. Peter feels vaguely guilty about tracking mud over the carpets covering the halls, but he forgets it the second Elias opens his door.

He looks like death. His skin is pale and waxy, his hair oily and limp, and he has dark circles around his eyes. Elias meets Peter’s gaze warily, without moving aside to let him inside, and that something that has been growing stronger inside Peter flares up.

He takes Elias’ hand holding on the door too hard, and peels it off. Elias lets him, sagging against him the second Peter steps closer. And then his face is buried into Peter’s neck and he is shaking, violently, and holding Peter tight.

“Something is wrong,” he chokes, and Peter tries to maneuver the door closed while holding him, and he feels that invisible, vast something draw closer.

The curtains are all drawn, so the flat is dim. It’s clearly an expensive, nice place, but right now it feels stifling. The walls press too close as Peter gets Elias to sit down on the couch and then makes him a cup of tea. The second Peter sits down, Elias loses his will to sit up straight. Peter holds him, and he should feel weird but all he can discern is a primal urge to protect, to soothe. It prickles along his spine like small jolts of electricity.

“I remembered,” Elias finally says in a whisper. “I remembered you.” Peter doesn’t answer. Somehow it is like standing at a precipice, and he knows he must tread carefully lest he fall. Elias watches him with harried eyes.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” he finally says. It comes out resigned. 

“Then don’t tell me.” Peter doesn’t really believe it’s an option. Elias laughs, hollow.

“I must.” Elias moves away, then. He sits on the opposite end of the couch, and the way he hugs his knees to his chest feels—wrong, like he isn’t supposed to sit like that. Peter wants to look away, maybe in the name of not witnessing such uncharacteristic vulnerability.

“I remembered,” Elias says again, but now his voice is detached. When Peter looks (he can’t not look,) Elias’ eyes are unseeing. “There was another world.”

“I—don’t want to hear this,” Peter says. He swallows and closes his eyes. 

“Another life.” Elias’ voice drops into near-whisper. “Fear had another meaning. It had an essence, every fear, and they were bleeding through.”

“I don’t want to hear this,” Peter says again, but his voice is thinner. He almost gets up, and Elias’ hand shoots out and grabs his arm. 

“You were lonely,” he says, voice scratchy. “You were born to be lonely.”

“Let me go,” Peter growls, and if he is afraid, fine. Elias doesn’t let him go.

“You were born to a family that didn’t so much grow apart as forced the fog of distance between everyone. And you were the best of them all, embracing the chasm until you fell through. You became a vessel that carried the emptiness everywhere.” Here Elias falters, and his grip grows slack. Peter is too shocked to pull away. 

“You had a ship,” Elias whispers, so quiet it’s almost inaudible. “Tundra.”

Peter rips his arm free and backs away. He wants to tell Elias to shut up, to stop doing whatever it is he is doing. It is like Elias is forcing his slender fingers through cracks in Peter, and whatever he is prying free is terrifying and foreign. He recognises it.

Elias stares at Peter, not really seeing him, seeing _someone else_. “We were lovers,” he says. The words fall between them. “And I did something.”

Peter watches, frozen in his private horror, as Elias’ face crumbles. He curls up and hides his face, and it is _so wrong_ ; Elias doesn’t hide, he doesn’t break, he takes and takes and takes until all that is left is—

“I broke the world,” Elias chokes out. “I served the Beholding. I used you, and people who were trapped in my gravity, and so many were lost.” He takes several shuddering breaths, not really succeeding in calming himself down. There is a dull susurrus starting at the base of Peter’s skull.

“You died,” Elias says at last. He might be crying.

Peter doesn’t remember leaving Elias’ flat. His head is foggy and quiet, and the next thing he knows to be true is the rain when it soaks through his coat.

*

A week passes. Then two.

Peter dreams of fog. He dreams of a cold sea, and a shoreline stretching into the distance. He walks into the surf, but instead of drowning him the ocean greets him like a friend. It is so, so cold, and nothing lives in the depths.

There is a lighthouse. Peter stands in the sea, naked and cold, and he sees the light as it goes round and round. The beam cuts through the hazy nothing, and Peter turns away.

Peter either sleeps and dreams of the fog, or he lies awake until the small hours and misses Elias. He doesn't want to, but something broke, and now it is like a missing limb and every kind of ghost pain. It is so odd it feels wrong; wrong in a sense that it shouldn’t feel right. Peter makes a list of what he knows about Elias, and it doesn’t cover even half a page. He rips the paper to shreds and digs his fingers into his eye sockets, knowing things that he can’t put to words but which span decades. 

Three weeks pass in a haze, and when someone shouts his name Peter almost doesn’t realise it’s him they’re calling for.

“Peter! Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to— Peter!” Peter blinks and turns around, and it’s _Evan._

Evan catches up with him and leans down to catch his breath. His skin is very pale, but when he looks up he is smiling. “Bloody hell, for a moment I thought I was mistaken,” he says. He straightens up and _beams_ at Peter. “I heard you left. No one told me you live in London!”

Evan left when he was twenty two. Peter remembers him at that time well, going away to take a job their mother didn’t exactly approve of. Peter was eighteen then. Gradually Evan stopped picking up his phone, and with time his picture vanished from the mantelpiece. 

Evan is pale and thin, but there is a spark in his eyes. When Peter finally breaks free from the sheer shock of seeing a family member, he gives his older brother a careful smile in return.

“I haven’t heard anything from the family in years,” he says, testing, and Evan touches his arm as his smile turns sadder. 

“Coffee?” he asks.

They talk for almost two hours. Evan looks at Peter and his stiff posture and doesn’t ask anything at first. Instead he tells about himself; job as a lab tech, a fiancée, moving out of London. The congenital heart problem that almost killed him a few years ago. 

“Naomi, my wife, she noticed I was getting tired,” Evan explains over his third cup of bad coffee. “She heckled me until I went to see a doctor. Turned out I was on borrowed time. They caught it, but my doc said I was most likely weeks from being dead.”

Peter shakes his head. He feels a sudden pang of loss, and just for a second the world around him blurs into a flash of a silent funeral. The feeling he got when Elias talked to him returns, the feeling that he is standing on that precipice. Then it vanishes, and he is looking at Evan again.

“You should get checked too, just in case,” Evan says. He tilts his head just like he used to do. “What are you doing nowadays?”

Peter feels...odd telling about his life to Evan. He has been alone for such a long time, and unspooling the years isn’t very pleasant. He does it nonetheless, and inexplicably he feels better when he finishes. Evan is still smiling. He hasn’t really stopped since they sat down, and Peter finds he likes seeing his brother like this. In the past, Evan didn’t really smile a lot. 

“Fucking hell,” he says softly. “I knew you had a falling out, but disowned? That’s harsh, even from Mother.”

Peter shrugs. He is smiling, too. “I never fit in. It was bound to happen.” He told Evan why Mother told him not to come back, because in the end it is just another piece of a tragedy they share.

“Well, in any case,” Evan says, looking a bit hesitant, “if you’d like, you could come visit us sometime. Naomi and I. She’s expecting, but isn’t due ‘til September.”

Peter stares. He gave up on his family such a long time ago, and now there is Evan; both of them have been untethered for years, and suddenly chance threw them into the same timeline again.

“I’d like that,” Peter says before he can chicken out.

*

Peter doesn’t know what makes him go back. It’s been three weeks, but something about meeting Evan rattles him to his core, and instead of home he finds himself staring at Elias’ door again. 

It feels dangerous. Peter doesn’t know what to believe, and realistically speaking Elias must be delusional. They don’t know each other, Peter doesn’t owe Elias anything, and still he feels like he is making the biggest mistake of his entire life if he doesn’t go back and understand.

Elias answers the door only after Peter has been knocking for almost five minutes. Peter almost drops his phone at the sight of him; Elias’ hands are shaking and his gaze is hazy, and he almost keels over when he lets go of the door. Peter surges forward and catches him, and Elias makes a weak laugh. “Peter,” he slurs, hands clinging to his jacket. “Why are you here?”

Peter has to wrestle Elias’ uncooperative form inside. The man looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, and the tremors that travel through his hands are so strong he can barely hold on to Peter.

“What happened?” Peter asks. He forces Elias back enough to look at him. He is disheveled and pliant, but when Elias finally registers Peter is talking to him he grimaces.

“I was...put on some medication,” he explains, haltingly. He closes his eyes and shakes his head like he is trying to clear it. “It seemed that the latent tendency for paranoid schizophrenia was quite high in my family.”

Peter feels his mouth fall slack open. He knows he is gripping Elias’ shoulders too hard, but he doesn't care. Only when Elias makes a face Peter speaks.

“They think you’re psychotic?”

Elias nods with a weak smile. “When I couldn’t return to work, a friend of mine came to check up on me. She was quite alarmed, really. A psychiatrist swung by, and diagnosed me with acute psychosis.”

“That’s bullshit,” Peter says before he can think about it. Elias’ eyes go wide but Peter just shakes him. “You’re not sick, it isn’t psychosis!”

“How do you know?” Elias asks in a thin voice that isn’t hopeful anymore.

Peter draws back, lets go of Elias, and his head swims. He knows. He doesn’t understand it, but he _knows._ Somehow he knows Elias, knows that the things he said are true. They’re impossible but they are true, and accepting the fact makes the world tilt.

When Peter opens his eyes he sees Elias kneeling by his side. Peter is lying on his back, and Elias is holding his legs up. He looks nauseous. “Still with me?”

Peter groans. He feels like shit, and he knows everything just got infinitely more complicated.

*

Peter wakes up, and for a second he doesn’t know where he is. Then he feels the warm weight against his side and recognises the dark blue curtains. Elias stirs the moment he shifts. He looks much better in the morning light. His hands are still shaking, but much less than yesterday. 

“Good morning.” His voice is closer to normal, and his eyes have lost the glassy stare. They focus on Peter with alarming clarity. When Elias notices Peter is staring at him, he looks away and worries his lip. “I didn’t take my evening dose, in case you’re wondering.”

Peter nods, wary. It’s an odd contrast to the fact that he slept better than in weeks and right now he feels good and secure because Elias is pressed against his side.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Better, in all honesty.” Elias looks vaguely guilty. “I know it’s...advisable to quit cold turkey, but I thought I was going to snap.” Peter rubs his eyes. He doesn’t feel ready to have this discussion, but he came back. He stayed the night. 

They didn’t really talk yesterday. After Peter felt like he wouldn’t faint Elias helped him up and back to the same couch they had occupied last time. They sat quiet for a long while, until Elias hesitantly reached for Peter’s hand. Peter let him take it, and then it was all too easy to fold against Elias and hold him until light faded and Elias asked if he’d like to stay. 

“Can you explain it to me? Again?” Peter asks. He doesn’t make a move to untangle his limbs from Elias’, and the man relaxes against him.

“It started after we met,” Elias begins, voice soft. “I started having dreams about...another world. Not anything parallel to ours, but close. I was someone else, but I was also myself. And I served a being that most would call a god.”

“Beholding.” Peter doesn’t know why he remembers that. Maybe he just knows it. 

Elias nods, his hair tickling Peter’s nose. “I was arrogant. Nothing I’m not now, mind you, but—more. Cruel and vindictive. I used so many people to achieve my goal, and that world ended.” He exhales, a shuddery puff of warm air that hits Peter’s chest. 

“You said I was lonely,” Peter says when the silence settles again. He feels rather than sees Elias’ smile. 

“Forgive me, but it’s rather obvious.” He glances upwards. “But yes. You served another being. And you died because of what I did.” Peter’s arm tightens around Elias. He doesn’t know if it’s in reflex. 

“I can’t explain how I know these things,” Elias goes on. “They came to me in a flood, but now it has slowed down to a trickle. That world ended, and I don’t know why I have to know these things. Maybe it’s a punishment for what I did.”

Peter looks at the ceiling. The house is quiet around them, and he doesn’t know what to do or say. He doesn’t want to believe Elias, but he does. 

“Why are we alive now, then?” he asks. “If the world ended, why have we lived our lives anyway?”

Elias shrugs. “Maybe someone undid it. Set it right. Maybe it wasn’t meant to end.” He curls up a little. “I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Why I know these things.”

Peter turns around and hugs Elias closer. He keeps replaying the words in his head. “You told me my family was distant,” he finally says, picking at something he feels prepared to address. “But it’s not like that at all.”

Elias looks up. “Maybe this world is different. Just enough that we don’t repeat the mistakes. I know for a fact that I’ve never met the other people I hurt. Not that I would wish to.” He sighs. “I’m sorry. Maybe we weren’t meant to find each other either.”

Peter nods but it’s just a sign he’s listening. Elias is very close, and holding him feels right; he’s not a puzzle piece Peter has been missing, but rather a presence he can’t or won’t ignore. Peter is surprised that he wants to stay like this, and even more so when it feels both familiar and utterly novel.

“I don’t think I was a good lover,” he says, thoughtful. “In that other world.”

“Oh?” Elias looks less worried now. Peter gives him a lopsided smile. Allowing himself to feel good things isn’t something he’s familiar with. “I believe you. If I served The Lonely, then I think I wouldn’t have been able to be there for you.”

Something like hope starts to show on Elias’ face. He tries to hide it, but Peter leans in before he can. His breath comes out with a soft, wordless sound when Peter kisses him, and it feels good. It feels right, like they have been missing each other all this time, both of them lonely. Elias kisses back like he has been starving, suddenly abandoning the hesitant manner and pressing fully against Peter, and oh, it is _good._

Peter holds him and kisses him, and it feels like the fog retreats a little.

*

The harbour is busy and dirty, and Elias makes a face as he picks his way through the dock. Peter glances back but it’s the same old, so he turns back towards the tall ships. He’s never been to Silvertown, and his work has kept him away from the docks anyway.

“Anything?” Elias asks when he comes to a stop. Peter looks around once more and then shrugs.

“Nothing. Can’t feel anything here.”

Elias sighs, but it’s an expression of relief. Peter doesn’t have to look to know his shoulders lose the tension almost immediately. They have been to a few ports in the past months, and all of them have been the same.

“Shall we go?” Elias doesn’t take his hand here, but he stays close enough so that Peter can smell his cologne. 

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” Peter says when they step inside from the fog and rain a few hours later. He brushes his fingers through his mist-damp hair and catches a flash of Elias’ relieved smile before the man turns to hang his coat to dry. “I suppose it was just the name. Something in it was tugging at me.”

“Tundra,” Elias pronounces carefully. “I haven’t been able to find a vessel by that name. For all I know, it doesn’t exist.”

Peter walks over to the tall window and looks out. His pale reflection stares back from the dark glass, and again he wonders how that other world ended. Peter doesn’t remember, but he feels it, inert and dead but _there,_ like a nerve pain he can’t quite reach to soothe. The Lonely. It rolls off his tongue as easily as Elias’ name. Peter feels it too, because he has always been able to. Whatever he left behind, it refuses to stay fully buried. It prickles and bleeds and hurts, until…

Elias leans against his side. Peter watches their smudgy reflection fade as rain picks up and starts to pound against the glass. He wraps his arm around Elias and turns away from the window.

“You know what? I don’t care.”

Elias’ brow quirks up in question. Peter has not-learned that Elias is an arrogant prick with no sense of self-preservation when it comes to working hours. Elias has spent the past two months easing his fingers into the cracks in Peter’s shell, slowly coaxing him out.

Peter manages a smile. “I don’t care. Bygones.”

Elias smiles. “Liar. It bothers you.” He tucks his face into Peter’s neck. “Is it because I think we weren’t meant to find each other?”

Peter laces his fingers together and rests them on the small of Elias’ back. “Yes. And no.” Elias huffs, and Peter knows he hates it when Peter doesn’t give him a straight answer. More things that bleed through, what with Elias’ need to stick his nose into everything.

“If we were not meant to meet, then why did we? If something or someone was powerful enough to undo that other world, wouldn’t they have made damn sure that all of us involved stayed separated?” Peter has asked these same questions constantly, just as he has been looking for things that link him to his other self. The Peter Lukas who died in the Lonely.

“I don’t know,” Elias says, as he has a hundred times before. Peter opens his mouth to argue more, but Elias’ mouth opens hot and wet against his neck and he shudders instead. 

Peter isn’t one to give up a good chase, however, and it is Elias who ends up pinned to the bed naked and panting. Peter starts caressing him, finding each spot that makes Elias grip his shoulders harder, and taking his time just because he can and he wants to. Elias is a wellspring of pleasure and delight, and Peter might come to love him for it. He might have loved Elias from the moment they kissed at the pub, because it was like being found and brought out of a mist.

“Please,” Elias gasps when Peter mouths the curve of his hip bone. His cock is hard and leaking, and Peter gives up the game and licks him into his mouth. Elias cards his fingers through Peter’s hair and tries to keep his hips still, but it’s a lost cause. Peter lets him, and he closes his eyes and focuses on being present there and then.

There is a stray, giddy thought right before Elias pulls at his hair and breaks with a curse and a whimper; Peter opens his eyes to a familiar sight, Elias flushed and mouthing words he can’t speak aloud yet, and Peter thinks that in this life, too, he ended up worshiping someone. Then Elias bucks up and comes, and Peter maybe gags a little but it’s still damn near perfect, and he forgets about it. 

And the fog retreats, a little.


End file.
